3 farm parks to visit near London

Bocketts Farm
The farm park we’ve visited the most is Bocketts Farm–a truly charming farm park set in the beautiful hilly Surrey countryside.

We usually buy a pack of animal food upon arrival, and the children enjoy feeding the cows, sheep and goats in the barn and the rabbits and guinea pigs inside.

In addition to meeting and feeding animals, families can enjoy the large play areas outside at Bocketts Farm, and we typically spend a long time on the jumping pillows and the climbing frames. Older children can enjoy pony rides, and there’s a farm walk on the area.

There are also indoor play areas, including soft play, slides, little tractors and a big tractor to climb into. Last time we visited it took us around 35 minutes to drive from Fulham.

Odds Farm Park
Another farm park that is easy to get to from South West London is Odds Farm Park near High Wycombe, which I was invited to review a few years back and it then took us around 50 minutes to drive there from Fulham. This year, Odds Farm Park has a new water play area with 80 metres of channels, streams and pools, and the numerous play features allow young visitors to move water through a series of pumps, channels, rivulets, wheels and gates.

Odds Farm Park also has a large animal barn with sheep and goats, rabbits and guinea pigs, as well as other big outdoor and indoor play areas. The outdoor adventure play area features bridges, balancing beams, slides and more, and families can also enjoy tractor and trailer rides around the farm, weather permitting. The soft play area inside features long slides that are fun for both young and old, and a compact soft play space for under 5s. Marmalade’s Tea Rooms at Odds Farm was a welcome surprise to us when we visited. The venue is committed to UK-sourced food, using free range, organic, ethical and fair trade produce, and the small dining area looked modern with colourful Tolix chairs.

Willows Activity Farm
With a pretty and fun Peter Rabbit Adventure Playground and a wide range of activities, I’m also a fan of Willows Activity Farm near St Albans. We were invited to the first anniversary of the Peter Rabbit Adventure Playground last year, and I was taken aback with the lovely themed play areas. The Adventure Playground, designed for under 6s, encourages imaginative play and brings together locations and characters from the CBeebies animated Peter Rabbit series. The sweet playground blends in with the rest of the farm park, and features different talking characters and themed areas, such as Mrs Tiggy-Winkle’s Kitchen, the Jeremy Fisher Music Pond, the Peter Rabbit Secret Treehouse, and Mr Mcgregor’s Garden.

There is also a Peter Rabbit Theatre, where there are live shows with characters from the CBeebies Peter Rabbit TV hit. In addition, young visitors can enjoy meeting characters at special meet-and-greet sessions (see schedules online for shows and character meet-and-greets).

The farm park, which it took me around an hour to get to, also boasts a large barn with horses, cows, sheep, rabbits and guinea pigs.